The field of this invention relates to plumbing and more particularly to a waste water piping system designed to be utilized in conjunction with multi-storied buildings.
In the constructing of any multi-storied buildings such as condominiums, office buildings or apartments, it is normal to include multiple plumbing fixtures throughout the building. Within each apartment, office or condominium, there will be located one or more sinks, one or more toilets, and one or more bathtubs.
In order to minimize the amount of plumbing within the building, it is common to design the offices, condominiums or apartments, so that the plumbing fixtures within one story are in vertical alignment with the plumbing fixtures of another story. In other words, it is common for the bathrooms of the individual units to be in vertical alignment.
With these bathrooms in vertical alignment, a single vent pipe can be installed which connects with the bathroom of each unit with the upper end of the vent pipe extending above the roof of the building and being open to the atmosphere. Also, the sink, toilet or bathtub of an upper level unit can deposit its waste into a pipe which extends to a lower unit which in turn is also designed to receive waste liquid from the sink, bathtub, and/or toilet of this lower unit.
In order to comply with building code requirements, it is necessary that an upper level toilet not discharge directly into the piping of a lower level toilet. In other words, the contents of each toilet, in essence, must have a direct channel into the sewer line in order to minimize the possibility of clogging the pipes causing flooding within the lower leveled stories and also prevent the seepage of sewage gas into the lower stories.
Previous to the present invention, the installing of plumbing within a multi-storied building was constructed in a custom manner. In other words, the plumber installs the vertical piping necessary to provide an outlet for the waste contents of the plumbing fixtures to be disposed of in the sewer line and then installs each of the plumbing fixtures and its associated piping at the job sight. It is common that a substantial amount of space is required in the installing of the piping for these plumbing fixtures. Generally, the one or more vent pipes might be located some distance from the one or more waste water pipes. Both such pipes are required in order to complete a plumbing system. This custom installation of the piping requires the cutting of holes within wood supporting frame members of the building structure in order to permit pipe to pass from one story to another story. This custom installation generally requires forming of a number of such holes plus individual soldering of a number of piping joints. This custom type of installation is labor intensive and time consuming.
The installation of plumbing is accomplished simultaneously with the building of the other portion of the structure. It is exceedingly common that the plumber is just not able to keep up with the building of the structure and it is usual that the plumber ends up being "buried". In other words, wallboard or other types of wall coverings end up having to be broken into or removed in order to complete the installation of the piping.